MFA Reopens on September 23
The Director Welcomes Us Back
By: Matthew Teittelbaum - Sep 11, 2020
Dear Friends,
Over these past months, I have received encouraging messages from members, and from our broad community of visitors, sharing their deep connections to and thoughts of the MFA and reminding me of the meaning of the Museum in their lives. For those who have written to me, and to all of you, I am pleased to share the news that the MFA opens on September 23 to members, and September 26 to the public.
It is a moment we have been planning for with care, thought, and much anticipation. Art enriches us all, and museums bring us together to share and to experience new possibilities. When museums are closed, the ways we interact with art, and our sense of community, are diminished. Though we worked hard these past months to keep a strong connection with one another (I am thinking of our wonderful online initiatives), there is evident comfort when we look at art in the Museum, together. Here we find hope. Optimism. Belief in the imagination. Historical perspective. Recognition of others.
This is all by way of saying, welcome back! The MFA will open over the next month or so in phases. First, and with great pleasure, we reopen the Art of the Americas Wing, reinvigorated with some new additions and enhanced interpretation. “Women Take the Floor,” on the Wing’s third level, has new works to see, presenting a refreshed narrative worth another look, and “Black Histories, Black Futures,” the groundbreaking display curated by Boston teens, remains on view in the Level 1 Rotunda, Sharf Visitor Center, and Hemicycle.
Later in the fall, each subsequent phase of opening brings exciting new exhibitions. We are very proud to share with you in October the long-awaited “Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation” in the Gund Gallery. And, in November, “Monet in Boston: Lasting Impression” opens in the Linde Family Wing.
“Writing the Future” reminds us of the power of community and how art can break down convention and liberate the imagination. “Monet in Boston” is the first time in a generation that all 35 of the MFA’s paintings by the artist will be on view together—bringing to you the pleasure of seeing one of the greatest Monet collections to be found outside of France.
In parallel with Monet we will also present “Cézanne: In and Out of Time”—a rare opportunity to see the MFA’s Cézanne paintings in the context of six additional works borrowed for the occasion. You will hear more about each of these exhibitions from our curators in the coming weeks.
I hope that when you return to our galleries and stand in front of a work of art, whether Basquiat’s Hollywood Africans or Monet’s Water Lilies, or work by Joan Mitchell or Loïs Mailou Jones in the Art of the Americas, you find a moment of connection—to what you see and to each other. Welcome back…but please, stay 6 feet apart!
Matthew Teitelbaum
Ann and Graham Gund Director